Have you ever touched those gummy buttons on an old Sony Betacam recorder? Ever admired this warm glow beneath the play-button? Ever wanted to add some of these to your own do-it-yourself projects, only to find you can’t buy them nowhere?

An intuitive interactive documentary movie editing machine based on principles of molecular biology and evolution theory

docReactor is a research/art project currently under development. It will be published as open source and will be displayed first as docReactor1.0://intuiton at the festival “Science et Cité” at Fribourg, Switzerland, may 20-24 2005

docReactor1.0://intuiton will be an experimental documentary, edited entirely by the visitors, on the place of intuition in science and arts

CodeZed - A video clip out of nowhere.
CodeZed is a visual playground, interactive dancefloor, social laboratory, time tunnel and random access video feedback machine. People acting between camera and screen are filmed randomly and projected in rythm to the music sometime later, maybe… As the projection is part of the filmed image, layer upon layer of different time slices are added like onion skins, creating interaction between the present and different pasts. Strange polyrythmic timepatterns appear and fade out again, dissolving to nebulae if the processus is not sustained by human intervention.

Description

CodeZed consists of a box containing a video camera, a TV monitor showing the live feed of the camera and a computer running the installation software (written in MaxMSP/jitter). The box faces a projection screen or white wall, at least 4m x 3m. It is important that the screen goes all the way down to the floor, with as little a border as possible. A video projector (VGA) is mounted on the ceiling such as to completely fill the visual field of the camera.

CodeZed works best with dance music. It needs a DJ and is best placed in a club or at a party.
The space between the box and the screen needs to be big enough for some people to dance.

Lighting & projection

Controlled lighting is crucial for the installation to function properly.
The room has to be dark enough to allow for a good projection, but some light is needed for the camera. Depending of the light output of the beamer and the screen size, a good balance has to be found.

Equipment

We can provide: Box, Camera, Monitor, Computer, as well as a small beamer (2000 ANSI lumens) for small venues.
A more powerful beamer would be helpful.